European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 07, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Saturday september 7. 1985 the stars and strips / 1 p4ae 17 focus on customer relations Quality control irs promises improvement by Jim Luther associated press to Rorai rom m. I i r., i i .--.-i. I d. I j. /. I la Paye of i i. R a n a i i i 1.-im,n,j and Corr a Rye Inive is. C a i or scr -j0 l he j to or Sai j in an i when gi-1 ii wire complaint Over and Aya n. You have la believe something mod. To be corrected he said Many of those complaint-., Thi year dealt with rotund , that were delayed because of massive a in Worms with a new computer system. A of july 12. The irs paid si7.1 million in interest on 1 ,3 m, refunds because the Agency was late in no Thoni at the same time a year earlier about 80b.000 refunds inc used in Teisl totalling $14 b . Egger said that although tin ear s return processing problems caused Groat unhappy mess Wilhm the Agency he sees the in flu As an Opportunity to focus on Quality control in processing auditing collections and certainly in dealing with taxpayers. Quality that s going to to the key added Egger. A tax lawyer and certified Public accountant. At the same time that Egger is seeking to improve customer relations the Reagan administration has proposed reducing the irs budget Lor the 12 months beginning oct. 1 by $30.4 million and 1,254 Job slots. What kind of Quality service do we want to provide Lor the Public that is paying the taxes that run this country he asked. We Are asking the taxpayers to provide first class when they give up their Money and we ought to be willing As a government to provide them the service that is the House appropriations committee has Voled to restore that Money and add another $147 million we will use that and probably need some More Egger said. Although he s concerned that the Agency is auditing too new tax returns Only about 12 per 1,000 that is no longer our first Egger said. It s taxpayer service. To the extent additional monies come in. Unless i m precluded by Law lion doing so. It s going to be spent where our problems Are increasing audits and concentrating them on tax shelter and upper income returns has been one of Egger s top goals since he look Over the irs More than four years ago. Egger Calls this filing season the worst Ever for the Agency. The Agency faced with 35 percent More returns than last year had the Choice of sticking with its 15-year-old computer equipment but the risk was too High. Egger said. The Cost would have been far Loo Steep and Iho personnel were not available to run the old system and the new one simultaneously until the bugs were removed he said. The new system was tested beforehand at the Memphis service Center. But when the switches were thrown in the other nine centers where returns Are processed the irs found unexpected problems not Only in the computers but in the Complex instructions that run them. The result was delayed refund checks perhaps one third of the nearly 68 million refunds mailed so far this year were trom one Day to two months late. Those delays triggered letters irom taxpayers congressional investigations a backlog of unanswered correspondence that Only now is being reduced to manageable proportions and a spate of rumours about irs employees shredding returns. The worst problem was at the Philadelphia service Center which last year had failed to Post $300 million Worth of business tax payments resulting in duplicate Bills and threats to seize business property. The iks ii promising to revamp i Public relations after massive foul ups this year. That foul up led to reports none Ever substantiated. Egger said that some returns were deliberately destroyed to reduce the work backlog. Taxpayer suspicions were fed by disclosure that a supervisor in the Austin. Texas service Cen Lei had ordered documents not lax returns destroyed the supervisor was lived Al the Fresno Calif. Center. 60.000 taxpayer documents were destroyed after they had been processed that was a deliberate management decision and perfectly Legal. Egger explained adding the Agency Felt in More important Al thai time to process tax returns than to write taxpayers a Normal practice to that their problems had been cleared up. The general accounting Vilice an Arm of Congress investigated the Fri no incident and. Egger said concluded there was no premature destruction of documents. Period " the National Treasury employees Union Winch represents ir3 workers said the Reagan administration s Budaj it cuts have been a bigger Laylor than computers in in j year s problems those reductions have slashed the Agency s processing work Force by Over 5.000 slots since 1980. Even though the number of tax returns has grown by 41 million during the same period the Union said. Egger agrees the problem n mom than computers on his or or. A top level irs pc Studying every Lac i of t 8 Ming a on. every po1 Tan in i i recommending Way to r out them " some of the Vui Al Uitich. Irs Haven t tf.1 a i tin r the Agency in or track Richard by i fan aide to sen John h Asaid , i no yol co Wincer ihorr.1 w. Recurrence of them on next year the sees a lot of ii
